


though they sink through the sea

by spiraetspera



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional dependence, F/M, Gen, PTSD, War times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 22:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13304532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiraetspera/pseuds/spiraetspera
Summary: They arrive at the inn very early, and dare not hope for admission.Roy and Riza are heading home from Ishval.





	though they sink through the sea

_That fire, they said, wolfed down the lot –_   
_the lovely little homes, the trees, the land._   
_That fire, they said, left nothing behind at all:_   
_one blackened trail, one sad scorched story._

  
*  
They arrive at the inn very early, and dare not hope for admission. 

But a woman spots them, carrying what looks like a jug milk and a newspaper. She invites them in with a strange tilt of her head, eyes blank and reserved. 

“Room nine is yours if you want it” says the innkeeper to the young woman, a little bit too fast, not quite meeting the eyes of the foreigner. 

According to the billboard outside, his name is Ezra Elovitch, age around forty or so. He has a limp and the woman can think of seven ways to kill him with her hands only, forty-seven with the gun under her coat. 

Next to Ezra, his young wife grimaces, but has the tact to turn away from this strange pair, away from the eyes of the young woman who has asked about vacancies. 

She, too, can smell and see the blood in their rigid stances.   
Soldiers, no doubt, from the Ishvallan front. Central meat gone bad, all pale under the sun-kissed skin of theirs. They must be very far from home. 

Behind the young woman - is she a  _girl_ , perhaps? Ezra cannot tell. Her eyes have an exhaustion in them that cannot ever be slept away - her partner, a man with dark eyes and an even darker expression levels him and his wife with intent. He looks tired, but there is more of a  constant wariness in him than fatigue. A sort of adamancy if you squint closer, the innkeeper thinks.

The hands of the male soldier linger on the shoulder of the other, lighter than air, as she steps closer to the desk to sign the papers and pay. She shakes herself and thus his hands off. 

“Do you have running water? To shower, perhaps.” rasps the girl. Then coughs. 

  
The dryness from which they escaped from must be unbearable. 

Heat is venturing back with the daylight. No rain for weeks either, and the only wind they have gotten from the Eastern parts was chemical-lidded filth and the promise of a firestorm. It carried the stench of death, the air, and people have been reluctant to come out from their houses so far. Believed the lack of rain means bad luck still, even if the war has ended for a week now.  

Sweat travels from her hair, a shabby shortness of hay-like gold. The sweat curls in her cheek, making it look like the woman is grieving. She has dust on her nose, something they should all smile about, were it not for that amber sorrow in her eyes.

“Yes, but it will only be warm for some minutes” Ezra answer. “So you two will have to be quick." 

Needless to say; water supplies have been cut off. The conduits were blown to bit a year ago and there wasn’t time or money to fix it. 

The girl nods. Knows. 

Such is the nature of war.

They head up to the rooms the same way they arrived. Silent and stiff, like dead things.

 

**

What awaits them, is a laughably casual room, with one huge mattress thrown in one of the corners, just next to a small, fractured window. It makes the light travel like spider web, throwing the room into a vertigo, a dream-state. The man seems to smile at that, and the woman senses it. They lock eyes and both feel relieved to be in cover. The woman smiles too. She feels guilty to be able to sleep on a mattress today.

Such is the nature of war. 

A clear aim and an unclear conscience.

"Should we?” asks the man and the woman nods, as if she held the higher rank. 

( _It will always be like this._ )

A philodendron in the corner. Ancient yellow curtains smelling like smoke and walls rice-paper thin. The woman sighs and prods the curtains and the mattress and puts her gun under it. The man checks the entrances and the small drawer across the plant. They lock the door and block the doorways with their boots so it would make a noise if someone wants to forcefully enter. 

The man sighs. It sounds relieved. The woman frowns still, but she, too, appreciates the normalcy, finds comfort in this banally conventional interior. He can see that from the way her hands cease to flutter. Her frown is not so deep anymore.

“Shower?” says the man.

“Now.” agrees the woman. And they stand in tandem. As if it would be any other dawn, any other start of the day - the man grins like a boy, and it drips straight onto the tattered soul of the young woman, who hums back. It is as close to a laughter as it gets. 

( _Roy has seen Riza half naked once, a long time ago, under that old and cold roof of the Hawkeye mansion. He didn’t knock and he had his razor in his hands for he had wanted to shave. Too impatient, on the edge of seventeen and not knowing when to act or wait so he entered the bathroom without fucking knocking first. And there she stood, standing in her white nightgown, this girl, this Riza Hawkeye, robe half rolled up or down - he doesn’t remember and he doesn’t care because he forgot everything then and there. Someone screamed - it could have way too easily been him. He still has the scar where the razor hit his toes. She still blushes sometimes, when she thinks about the situation. Roy has learned his lesson for a lifetime._ )  

They strip with methodical acumen, logical willingness, not yet in the bathroom, but between the mattress and the plant. Holding and treating their bodies as instruments seem to come naturally these days. Soldiers are not their own, after all. 

The man with the coal-black hair has no scars, except the one on his fingers - accidental sparks of fire backlashing, his own creation screaming stop while he could only stare. There are old wounds, too, but they are not visible. His body is a familiar stretch to her and she is not shy anymore. She couldn’t care less.   
Yet as he peels his boots off, white gloves fall with them and the girl freezes, the skin near her lips - chapped and tasting the sand too many a times- jumps. Even these old wounds, these invisible ones, they are hard to forget. His stubble is a week old. 

Next to her, facing him, the girl with the golden-hay hair starts to cast her weights down too. She is younger than the man, by a year or so. Still, a woman of war. This is obvious, whispered through the many way she is examining her hands - hands that lack softness - as she strips her shirt and her bandages off. Her fingers are full of the smallest of scars. No weapon is merciful towards is handlers, however close they are.

Her belt and her bra and the rest of her clothing from the arc of her hips follow the uniform onto the grime, the dust of the wooden floor. 

It does not matter, not really: all of their clothing seems to be bloodied, a sign that she has been on the front half a day ago. An eternity.

Finally, the bathroom. It feels crowded with the two of them standing in it, all revealed and tired and shameless in their nakedness. Then the woman of war with her rough hands lets the man with the dark eyed and darker heart lean on her shoulders as he helps himself into the tub. He winces and she does not blush at the contact. They do look at each other with a certain soft wistfulness though, a light entrancement as she follows him; eager for cleansing. 

Steam rises. Hot water starts running, running, running in big, fat, warm droplets and they do not speak as it trickles down, tickling their bodies. Dirt and blood and maybe some of the guilt and worry, too, leave their clockwork muscles, all knotted from the fight. There is an inaudible sigh, a nonverbal, mutual ecstasy of relief in their shared spaces. Purity is luxury in this trade.

No, not words, but a single bar of soap is all that travels back and fro; all they want and need to share now. She might have been frightened and aloof when younger and he might have made a remark or two by now, loud and maybe, most definitely rude -  but this last days of this summer morning is austere, the war is in their marrows now, heavy and sharp and they do not and cannot forget this ever-ever-ever. 

And yet. Even with this heaviness, the man wonders whether they should sleep with windows open tonight. He does not think about what he will do to this woman tomorrow.

( _Except he does, she is turning and turning to pass the soap and the red of her back all but blinds him as it fleshes, neon in this strange light. Roy doesn’t know it yet, but he will beg for her to change her mind, beg on his knees. And she will be cruel (she will be just) and screech at him for the first and last time in her life. It is too heavy, Roy, she will wail. Just burn it, destroy it. Don’t be a coward now. It is heavy and I want it gonegonegonegonegone. Her voice will break but her willingness will not. She will hurl the philodendron from the corner and sit at the entrance to block his way. And Roy will want to cover his eyes and ears and mouth from it all, the madness, the strength of this woman and bury himself in the love for this woman.  But - oh, gods, the guilt, he will think. A razor in his mouth, falling towards nothingness, slicing him all up from the inside. It is like this, it seems, with her. Yes, Roy will beg. Let it end, he will say. It will never, never, never, she will scream back. We lost the right. And she will shape the route of the razor with her gratitude. But only afterwards. After the screaming and the blood and the burning. Tomorrow, he will weep and she will smile._ ) 

The woman wonders whether they will be able to sleep at all. She is more practical than the man. There are only blankets in the shape of a noose and blood-full dreams with heavy intake of small breaths in war times. No true rest for the wicked.

These moments then, are small blessings: a hot shower, a roof above their head, something to sleep on. 

Blessings, like the man bowing his head, hand curled in a tent above his eyes, so she can soap his hair, washing the silk-like curls with routine and care. She massages the foam into his scalp and temple, careful not to get any in his eyes. The man thinks this woman’s fingers are full of ridges, for they are holy hands, full of scars. Holy things are, after all, hard things. But he will never say this aloud. She would turn her head away, embarrassed and furious and not understanding. 

( _Except she does. And it frightens her so._ )

After washing off the froth, another blessing: him holding her as she scrubs the soles of her feet, intent of bidding goodbye to the tiniest of scrubs. Until nothing remains but the zigzag way her body tanned weeks ago. He washes her back and tries to memorize the smooth curve, the gentle steel of that flawless back that he cannot think of as mangled and hurting.  

There is a click, signalling there is not much time left. 

The woman straightens up, turns and puts her hands onto the man’s shoulder. Steam rises still, and in the fog, the two figure embrace each other. Time does not stop. War does not stop. They are alive and the water stops. And they do not let go of each other. They do not say the things they do not dare. The embrace is like a vice. It is a promise and an oath, but it is also tenderness and deliverance.

Only when they start shivering -  the water drops are now ice on their bodies - do they lift their heads up. The man’s arms are longer, so he is the one clasping the towel while she steps out and helps him again, and now, now there is more in the way she fastens her hand, more than relief in the way he relies on her help.

( _It will always be like this._ )

She makes him sit on the brink of the tube, and drapes the towel from his hands to his head and starts to ruffle it until it resembles a nest. They both reward it with a small smile, one boyish and the other a shadow of what used to be. A familiarity. He helps her drying her back, making great circles, following the mishmash symbol that he can trace with his eyes closed if needed. 

The last droplets of the water make a melody as they leak from the tap. The pair heads to the bed. No questions asked. The young woman looks very young in this clarity, this clean, her hair wet and eyes dry. It makes the space between his ribs hurt. 

The sun is setting and there is a strange mixture of scents in the room already, something like ozone and that heavy earthly odour they have not smelled for a month or so. The man does not bother with dressing again. After stuffing their uniforms back into the bags, he stretches on the mattress and closes his eyes.

“Riza” he whispers. She is near the window, forlorn, already dressed in clean shirt and sweatpants. “Could you open the windows?”

“It is not - ” she begins.

“I know. For five minutes then.” And there must be something raw in his expression, because Riza slides the curtains open and spreads the window frames and Roy feels the air sliding in, more free and wilder and wider than he remembered it to be. He closes his eyes and  imagines dying like this.

“Tomorrow” says Riza softly. Roy opens his eyes. She is sitting at the other side of the bed and her shirt is all white, immaculate and her eyes are alert. 

The sun is setting, although there are clouds in the horizon, shielding the orb, shadowing its presence. She must feel his cowardice. Sense it like his smiles and moods. She reads him like a book. It should frighten him, her omniscience, but terror is not what he feels. 

“I promised.” he says, at last, and her shoulders fall, as if she was relieved from duty suddenly. 

After drawing the curtains back on, Riza is even calmer than before, knowing the light won’t disturb them in their sleep this early. Her limbs must feel as eternal-heavy as his, but when he draws her closer with one extended arm, her body is strong and he believes it will shield him from the heavier parts of the nightmares. Roy has always been an idealist.

Their eyes are already closed when he opens his mouth. 

“We got lucky with this room” he mumbles and still, forces to open his eyes to see her face, just before sleep weighs him down. 

Such is the nature of love. 

“Yes, I believe so.”

“See you.” he says. She hums in agreement and her body is a solid warmth in his armth. The hurt of her absence will be a physical thing.   

( _Roy will hold her like this only once more - in the catacombs under Central City where her blood will pool around her like a halo and his voice will turn rusty from screaming her name._ ) 

Minutes later, Roy starts to snore, light and content. Riza will wake up in the middle of the night to adjust the cover on their bodies. 

There will be a rumble too. The sky will open up. Rain will pour down.

He will call her Riza for the last time tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it and it was original and send me some feedback if you have time and energy. :-) Is the enough angst in it?


End file.
